This blog is a great opportunity to share ideas about ways to
transform schooling as we know it, to help all students realise their
talents, passions and dreams. Be great to hear from anyone out there! Feel free to add a comment to Bruce's Blog and enter e-mail to receive postings

‘Children's brains work better when they are moving, the master
teacher explains. Not only do they concentrate better in class, but they are
more successful at "negotiating, socialising, building teams and
friendships together".

Finland leads the world in its discovery that play is the most
fundamental engine and efficiency-booster of children's learning.’

‘I think the challenge is that we have an education system,
globally, and very much so in the western world, which is geared towards things
that we can measure: particularly 'academic subjects’ – maths, science, and
English. Because these are taught and tested in a way that is eminently
measurable. The problem with standardisation is that you end up narrowing the
curriculum and narrowing the tuition, so that we can measure success through a
quite restrictive testing regime.’

‘For those of us involved in education and the education reform
movement, however, the negative consequences of post-truth discourse have been
around for more than a century—and during the past three decades, a harbinger
of what the Trump phenomenon has brought to the U.S.’

A High School Math Teacher’s First Experience Teaching Elementary
School

‘At a workshop in Alameda County last month, I made my standard request
for classroom teachers to help me make good on my New Year’s resolution. I
assumed all the teachers there taught middle- or high-school so I said yes to
every teacher who invited me. Later, I’d find out that one of them taught
fourth grade.

As a former high school math teacher, this was NIGHTMARE MATERIAL, Y’ALL.’

‘Now I can say it. With my youngest
child having safely fled the school system, I can finally say, without fear of
jinx or reprisal, that how we educate our kids is insane. It's not the
teachers, who show the normal human range from fine to feeble. Not the
particular schools, which included public and private, selective and
non-selective. What's insane is the system and – feeding it, as fear feeds war –
an intensifying cultural madness. Not theirs. Ours.’

‘From books, arts and sports classes to
iPads and television, many parents do everything in their power to entertain
and educate their children. But what would happen if children were just left to
be bored from time to time? How would it affect their development?’

'An education in the arts is limited to
the economically privileged. It is an unjust waste of national talent’

The author

‘A good education should be a preparation
for life. It requires the development of the whole child, not merely their
intellect. It necessitates students becoming intrinsic learners with
self-discipline and a genuine thirst for knowledge, rather than being goaded or
corralled, which is what students may become with a single-minded focus on exam
results.’

‘It's not impossible to reduce your
stress levels; you just need to make managing stress a higher priority if you
want to reverse this effect. The sooner you start managing your stress
effectively, the easier it will be to keep unexpected stress from causing
damage in the future.’

Teacher: A one-size-fits-all approach to
instruction is stifling our classrooms

‘Everyone has an opinion about what’s
wrong with American education. Classrooms are overcrowded. Funding is
misallocated. Segregation persists. Politicians, principals, and academics have
rancorous debates over how to best fix our schools. On at least one issue,
however, everyone agrees: Students deserve great teachers. But how can we
attract — let alone retain — them?’

“It is always amazing to see how exposure to an environment, or
culture, can change how we think without us even knowing – I guess this is
called conditioning. New ideas always rely on those individuals who can see
reality without the blinkers.The truth however is not always welcome and it is
always easier to go along. As Oscar Wilde once said, ‘The truth makes you very
unpopular at the club.’”

‘Every student brings with them memories and ideas gained from the
experiences they have had. All too often this personal form of motivation is
overlooked by teachers who seem to think they have better ideas to use - their
own. It is as if students come to school as blank slates (tabula rosa) when
instead they come with a wealth of ideas to share but to do their ideas need to
be valued.’

‘It is is worth thinking about the
dispositions and pedagogical skills that make a creative teacher.The key
attitude is a desire to help every individual student develop his ,or her, own
particular set of interests and talentsrather than simply 'delivering' the
curriculum in an innovative way. The curriculum need to 'emerge' from the
students' felt concerns.’